Rick woke before the alarm, chloe handbags sale with the sound of birdsong outside his window. Blackbird, he thought. He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was what he saw every morning: her face looking at him from the photo on the chest beneath the window.

It had been taken on holiday just months before she died, smiling and high on chocolate and attention from both her parents chloe handbags on sale. She showed no signs of illness: her pale, damp hair was wild as candyfloss. Her shoulders glistened and her brown eyes gleamed. He smiled back, as if she could still see him. Amy, his honey and his muffin.

A few years ago, Laura – wrapping her arms around him from behind and speaking into his hair, had suggested he put the photograph somewhere less visible. He had tried, but somehow that made it worse chloe handbag sale. When he woke and stared at where her face should have been, he felt guilty he was trying to put her out of his mind. So he replaced the picture and woke to that fresh face chloe handbags outlet, brimful of joy.

"It doesn't make me sad," he'd said to Laura, although of course it did. It made him sad and it made him happy chloe online store. You don't stop loving people when they die. His daughter was four, then she was no number at all.

He turned over and found Laura gone: she must have crept quietly from the room so as not to wake him chloe outlet online. He pictured her dressing in the bathroom, going downstairs holding her shoes, picking up the bag she had packed late the evening before, the door opening and closing with a slight click.

He squinted at the clock. Ten past six and the rest of the house was still quiet. He pictured them in their beds, cheap chloe handbags eyelids closed and flickering in dreams. Sam had turned 13, but he would be lying the way he'd lain since a small child – as if he had fallen from a tall building, chloe handbag cheap legs splayed and arms flung away from his body, all the covers adrift.

Chloe would have her hands held together as if in prayer and pressed under her turned cheek. Connor and Jessie – still sharing a bedroom because there was nowhere else for them to go – slept neatly curled on their sides, chloe sale online often turned towards each other like a mirror image. Last night, Jessie had cantered round the house in her sleep, eyes wide open and glassy, her face shiny with sweat. Rick had led her back to bed and sat beside her until she slid back into her dreams. What does a three year old dream of?

He would lie here for a few more minutes and get ready for the day. Sometimes he thought that all he had left in his head was lists: laundry, homework to be checked, packed lunches, the shopping, the phone calls. His desk was covered with Post-It notes. "PE bags Mon and Thurs", "money for school trip", "milk bill"… He closed his eyes and listened to the blackbird's notes, liquid trills chloe marcie bag sale. Then there was the sound of padding feet outside, someone calling his name. The day began.

He unpacked the dishwasher. He got out breakfast things. He made packed lunches. There wasn't enough bread left and he added crackers, a little box of sultanas. Sam had lost his homework. Chloe had knots in her hair and her cheeks were pink with rage as she tugged a comb through them. Connor spilt milk all over the table; it dripped through the cracks on to his shoes chloe marcie sale. Jessie was silent and dreamy and refused to eat anything.

The cat yowled and he went to feed it. Nearly out of cat food: he made a mental note to himself. The phone rang – it was Bill, chloe handbags outlet online father to the oldest two children, wanting to speak to his ex.

"She's in Amsterdam," said Rick, warily.

"Why aren't the kids with me then?"

"She only left an hour ago." Rick watched as Sam dropped a blob of butter on to his clean trousers, then rubbed at it chloe handbags sale online. "She'll be back later."

"Get her to ring."

"Get her to ring please," chloe discount handbags muttered Rick as he put the phone down. Chloe and Sam were looking at him anxiously and he smiled reassuringly. He'd lived with them since they were little. Grief had driven him and his first wife apart. Raw and unravelled and so lonely he felt dizzy with it, he had met Laura and her children. She had rescued him and so had they, chloe designer handbags with their trust and acceptance.

They put their hands into his when they wanted safety; chloe handbags sale uk for years they had slid into bed between him and Laura when they had bad dreams. But he wasn't their father, he was their stepfather.

Teeth cleaned. Faces washed. Shoelaces tied. Hair brushed. PE kit found. Homework into school bags outlet chloe handbags designers. The clock on the wall stood at 8.20am. They were going to be late again.

At the school gates, mothers greeted him warmly. It was getting easier. A few years ago, he'd been almost the only father to drop his children off and pick them up. Now he was part of a growing army. When people asked him what he did, he said: "I'm a househusband." Or, "I look after the children." Often he would add, "At the moment," because it still seemed a bit odd, replica chloe handbags against the grain not just of other people's expectations, but his own.

Sometimes people didn't know what to say; sometimes they praised him, as if he was doing something brave. Every so often, he thought he saw pity in their eyes, and then he knew they knew.

He walked back via the shops and picked up cat food and milk. At the house, he cleared up the breakfast things, changed the sheets on the younger children's beds because it was a beautiful day and he could hang washing outside to dry. He went from room to room, picking up dirty clothes, crisp packets, chloe cheap outlet stores apple cores, damp towels.

He went online and paid several bills that he'd woken in the night worrying about. He picked Laura's suit up from the dry cleaner. He hung the sheets on the line, where they flapped and billowed in the wind. He picked sweet peas from the garden and made a spring onion and pea soup with lemon zest and poured it into a flask. Both soup and flowers were for his aunt, chloe cheap handbags online who had pancreatic cancer and who was very ill, probably near her end.